UN CBD COP 10: Business and Biodiversity, Hand in Hand

–Anne Petermann, Global Justice Ecology Project Executive Director and North American Focal Point for the Global Forest Coalition

Nagoya, Japan–Today was the opening day of the UN Convention on Biological Diversity’s tenth Conference of the Parties (COP-10). 2010 is the International Year of Biodiversity. It is also the year by which the UN CBD had tasked itself with achieving a set of “Millenium Development Goal” (MDG) targets with regard to staving off biodiversity loss.

As you can probably imagine, these goals came nowhere close to reality.

At this CBD COP, however, the Parties are pledged to create a new 10 year strategic plan. Over the course of the next two weeks, the details of this plan will be discussed word by painful word.

The Opening Ceremony of the COP-10 took place this morning. Part pep rally, part hand wringing, the presentations by the Big Wigs went on ad nauseum. They went on so long in fact, that the environmental groups present–which had spent a couple of days preparing a 3 minute opening statement to the COP–were not allowed to present it. No time…

But after all this taking “a hard look at” itself, the CBD has decided NOT to look at the root causes of this failure, but rather to commit itself to buddying up with business in order to devise a win-win that will supposedly protect biodiversity while promoting the interests of industry.